


Wish the Ground Would Swallow Me Whole

by SolarMorrigan



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, No angst here, much more after TV canon than book canon jsyk, no substance either, this is ridiculous I'm so sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-26
Updated: 2019-10-26
Packaged: 2021-01-03 22:36:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21187109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SolarMorrigan/pseuds/SolarMorrigan
Summary: Aziraphale scoffed. “You know, I’d wager you’re far more easily embarrassed than I am.”“Don’t be ridiculous. I amnoteasily embarrassed.” Crowley took a moment to polish off his ice cream cone. “That’s a wager you’d lose, angel.”-This was probably an ill-advised thing for Crowley to say. It all goes downhill from there (depending on your perspective)





	Wish the Ground Would Swallow Me Whole

**Author's Note:**

  * For [christinefromsherwood](https://archiveofourown.org/users/christinefromsherwood/gifts).

> Many thanks to [christinefromsherwood](https://christinefromsherwood.tumblr.com/) for being lovely and prompting this for me on Tumblr and also waiting ever so patiently for me to finish writing it while I complained about it taking on a life of its own
> 
> This is the longest thing I've written for this fandom yet and it's... like, utter ridiculousness. I hope it at least amuses some of you!

Crowley accepted the ice cream from the vendor with a quick nod of thanks, keeping the cone for himself and passing the ice lolly on to Aziraphale.

“Lovely.” Aziraphale smiled, taking the treat delicately between his fingers before leaning up the scant few inches it took to peck Crowley on the cheek. “Thank you, my dear.”

As still tended to happen, Crowley froze for a moment, making a slightly started noise before recovering himself to reply with a fast, “no problem, angel.”

Aziraphale hummed, turning away from the cart to walk on, and Crowley moved to follow, only pausing to glare at the man who’d sold them the ice cream when he caught the amused smirk on his face.

The vendor quickly bit down on his smile, his face becoming the very picture of _I didn’t say anything_, and Crowley considered it good enough to move on.

“Don’t be mean to the poor man,” Aziraphale chided lightly when Crowley caught up to him. “It’s adorable how easily flustered you are.”

Crowley scowled, the effect somewhat dampened by the bite of ice cream he’d just taken. “I’m not _adorable_. I’m a _demon_,” he sneered.

“Retired demon,” Aziraphale reminded him.

“Half retired,” Crowley shot back, largely to be contrary; he didn’t tempt people much anymore, in no mood to do Hell any favors, but occasionally the urge to be a nuisance to society was too strong to ignore. Old habits did, indeed, die hard.

Aziraphale hummed, noncommittal, and took Crowley’s hand with his free one. “I still think it’s quite sweet.”

“It’s not _sweet._ There is nothing to _be_ sweet, because I don’t get _flustered_ or whatever you’re on about,” Crowley grumbled, absently squeezing Aziraphale’s hand. “_You’re_ the one who gets flustered.”

Somehow Aziraphale managed to turn the next lick of his ice lolly into a “tsk” noise. “I do not,” he denied quickly.

“You do,” Crowley insisted, smirking. “I thought you were gonna spontaneously discorporate the first time I kissed you in public.”

“Well I wasn’t expecting it! Out on the street with all those people around. _Really_.” Aziraphale huffed, though the look he sent Crowley was far from as displeased as it had likely been intended.

Crowley snickered. “Yeah, that was fun. You were red for almost 10 minutes.”

Physical affection had been an uneven road for the both of them, uncertain of their safety and of how welcome their advances would really be, but they’d stumbled stubbornly along together and figured it out as they went. Now, over a year after their effective resignations from Heaven and Hell, they seemed to be figuring things out quite well, the occasional short-circuit aside.

“Oh, don’t pretend you weren’t blushing as well,” Aziraphale returned.

“Was not.”

“You absolutely were.”

“Eh.” Crowley shrugged. “Might’ve a little. Had nothing on how hard you were blushing, though.”

“A_ little_?” Aziraphale scoffed. “You know, I’d wager you’re far more easily embarrassed than I am.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I am _not_ easily embarrassed.” Crowley took a moment to polish off his ice cream cone. “That’s a wager you’d lose, angel.”

Aziraphale hummed again, this time at that thoughtful pitch that usually meant he was considering something carefully. There was a brief silence before Aziraphale gave a disappointed little “oh” that Crowley had centuries ago accidentally trained himself into almost immediately responding to.

“What?”

“Oh, I was just so busy talking, I didn’t realize how much the lolly was melting.” Aziraphale brandished his half-eaten treat.

Crowley opened his mouth to respond with a flaunting tease about being more pleasing than ice cream, only for the words to die in his throat as Aziraphale licked up the length of what remained of the lolly and then sucked the entire thing into his mouth.

A short, strangled series of syllables came out of Crowley’s own mouth as Aziraphale gave a pleased hum and pulled the lolly stick cleanly from between his lips. Swallowing the last of the ice cream, Aziraphale tugged Crowley a little further up the path—when they’d even stopped walking, Crowley had no idea—to bin the stick, then had the nerve to smile benignly at Crowley.

“You did that on purpose,” Crowley accused, once his vocal cords were back under his command.

Aziraphale licked the remaining wet strawberry flavor from shiny, red lips, looking quite pleased with himself. “Of course,” he said. “I didn’t want to let any more of it melt away and go to waste.”

“That was a dirty play, angel,” Crowley huffed, amused beneath what most certainly wasn’t any sort of _flusterment_, but perhaps a bit of surprise.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, dearest,” Aziraphale replied cheerily. “Shall we get on with our walk?”

For a moment, Crowley considered retaliating, doing something to give Aziraphale a flush to match the one that had risen at his own collar, but instead swept a magnanimous hand at the path before them, half bowing beside Aizraphale. “Oh, by all means.”

If Aziraphale was suspicious of how easily Crowley had moved on, he didn’t show it, and that suited Crowley just fine; he’d be all the more surprised when Crowley found the right time to pay him back.

-/-/-

Crowley’s revenge had started mainly with his strengths; perhaps Aziraphale was better at action (when he finally decided to act), and perhaps he’d more quickly acclimated to being openly tactile with Crowley, but Crowley had always been the better of the two of them when it came to words. A well-aimed suggestion could seed discontent, a simple question could sow doubt, a credible-sounding rumor could create chaos… and a good pet name could make Aziraphale blush more reliably than anything Crowley had found yet.

Crowley was having quite a lot of fun with it.

At first it had been little label drops – things like “can we get a refill for my boyfriend here?” and “large black coffee, and a blueberry scone for my partner” (“boyfriend” felt a little pale for what Crowley and Aziraphale had, but Crowley used it to be more obvious about things, usually when he felt chances were high people would hear “partner” and mistake them for lawyers or businesspeople; “husband” seemed an acceptable word, but Crowley wasn’t entirely confident in his ability to even pretend at using that one without becoming a bit of a crumbly mess himself). These would usually make Aziraphale go an appealing shade of pink and determinedly avoid everyone’s gaze while smiling to himself.

The results were so good that Crowley decided to try a few nicknames.

Though “angel” had long ago ceased to be anything but a term of endearment, Crowley was fairly convinced Aziraphale still thought it was a statement of fact, and so he branched out.

“Sweetheart,” “darling,” and “love” were all classics that rolled off the tongue and, when used blatantly and obviously in front of other people, brought a satisfying bit of pink to Aziraphale’s cheeks (Crowley avoided “babe” and all derivatives after his first use of it had caused Aziraphale to inhale the sip of wine he’d just taken; he _had_ turned red, but that hadn’t quite been the way Crowley’d planned on going about it). It stood to reason that more outrageous pet names would garner even better reactions, and so Crowley, possessed of little shame and no small desire to prove Aziraphale wrong, became more creative.

Out came things like “sugar” and “pumpkin” and “sweetie pie,” which turned into “my heart,” “light of my life,” and “apple of my eye.” The unfortunate side effect of these nicknames, however, was that Aziraphale figured out what Crowley was up to (Crowley expected it was probably “honey-bunny that had given him away; anything that rhymed was really a bridge too far).

And once Aziraphale figured out what Crowley was up to, he began to fight back.

Suddenly, Aziraphale was taking Crowley’s hand or arm in his own with much greater frequency as they took walks, sometimes going as far as to press a kiss to the back of his hand when he did so. There were more hugs in greeting and pecks on the cheek in thanks, and he’d even once bowed and kissed the tips of Crowley’s fingers, causing no less than three passersby to coo in amusement and delight (the old fashioned bastard had always enjoyed the concept of courtly love, even though he’d been through that era and knew it had been absolutely nothing like that). Crowley had rather hoped if he denied the flush that popped up after that vehemently enough that it would miraculously go away, but from the pleased smile on Aziraphale’s face, he probably wasn’t successful.

Crowley tried to get used to the steady stream of rather public physical affection, or at the very least get his traitorous corporation to stop briefly short-circuiting any time Aziraphale did something like scoot closer to him on a park bench and lay a gentle arm over his shoulders, but didn’t have much luck. Some part of him wasn’t sure he’d ever get used to it after six millennia of subsisting on what few touches could pass unnoticed between himself and Aziraphale; another part of him didn’t _want_ to get used to it. He liked how new it always felt, how precious and novel. He liked feeling like he was getting away with something wonderful when they could do these things out in the open. In private was one thing – it had been easier to adjust to when they felt safely hidden away in the bookshop or Crowley’s flat, but in public?

It was the first thing in a long time that really felt _new._

Instead of acclimating, Crowley browsed the travel magazines at a news stand he and Aziraphale had stopped at and loudly wondered what the best destination for a romantic getaway might be.

Aziraphale had stuttered his way through an answer while a couple of other customers side-eyed them strangely (probably more for Crowley’s volume than anything, but the result was the same).

Crowley had expected some sort of payback for the noise he made at the news stand, but he hadn’t expected the pizzeria.

(Well, no, he expected the pizzeria, he and Aziraphale had made a date to go there, and there was nothing particularly shocking about it; with its red tablecloths and wine bottle candles, it was all rather charmingly normal. It was fairer to say that Crowley didn’t expect what happened _at_ the pizzeria.)

For a change, Crowley was at the restaurant before Aziraphale, waiting for him to show up rather than driving there with him as usual. Aziraphale had a meeting with another “book dealer” (“book dealer” was always put in quotations when Crowley thought the phrase because, from his own experience and Aziraphale’s stories, Crowley was fairly certain anyone who claimed to sell secondhand books was lying) and had promised to meet Crowley there before long.

Impressively, it really wasn’t long at all before Aziraphale showed up. His grasp of time when around books was shaky at best, but Crowley had barely to wait half an hour before he saw Aziraphale speaking with the host, pointing to the table where Crowley sat, and making his way over.

“Evening, angel,” Crowley greeted as Aziraphale drew nearer.

Aziraphale didn’t respond, looking oddly intent in the candlelight. He didn’t stop and sit in the chair left for him, but instead continued around the table until he was standing beside Crowley.

“Everything alright?” Crowley asked, pushing down the nagging unease in the pit of his stomach.

“Oh yes, quite alright,” Aziraphale assured him, before leaning in for a kiss.

With the full, soft press of Aziraphale’s lips to Crowley’s, and the fingers of one of his hands trailing under Crowley’s jaw while the other cupped his cheek, it was no easy kiss “hello,” and yet it remained gentle and chaste. There was nothing at all sordid about it, but even as Crowley regained the presence of mind to kiss back, he felt as if being naked in front of all the other diners would have been less open than this.

Aziraphale pulled back before long and well before long enough and gave Crowley a soft, sunny smile. “Good evening, my dear.”

“Uh,” Crowley answered eloquently.

“I do hope I didn’t make you wait too long,” Aziraphale continued blithely. “Did you get us something to drink?”

“What was _that?”_ Crowley demanded as his brain finally caught up to the situation, resolutely ignoring the way his voice pitched up on the last word.

“What was what?” Aziraphale’s brows drew together in confusion.

“That _kiss,_” Crowley hissed. “What was that for?”

The uncertainty smoothed from Aziraphale’s face, leaving an easy, pleased look in its place. “Oh, that. You just looked so very… tempting, sitting here,” Aziraphale glanced up and down what he could see of Crowley above the table, “looking the way you do.”

Crowley stared, unblinking, from behind his sunglasses. “I always look this way,” he protested faintly.

“Then I’m sure you can imagine the self control I must regularly exert around you,” Aziraphale replied, glancing back down at his menu as his smile took on that bastardly little edge Crowley usually loved seeing. “And it put the most _fetching_ color into your cheeks.”

Oh.

_Oh._

So that was how it was going to be, was it?

Crowley narrowed his eyes, flipping his menu up to hide his (_slightly_) reddened face from Aziraphale’s view. If the angel had decided to play dirty, he had absolutely picked the wrong opponent.

-/-/-

Patience may have been a virtue, but that didn’t mean angels cornered the market on it. Crowley could be very patient when he needed to be.

He endured Aziraphale’s smug look through dinner at the pizzeria and through the next day until the incident faded from immediate memory. He bided his time, waiting for an opportunity.

His patience finally paid off when they were out to dinner once more; it wasn’t the usual high-end eatery either of them tended towards, but a fairly nice, family-run place with excellent and terribly underrated food.

The nice thing about family-run places, Crowley decided with increasing, unholy glee, was that they tended to do fun, personalized things – things like gather a bunch of the servers together to sing “Happy Birthday” to a kid at a table across the restaurant who looked like they couldn’t decide between laughing or hoping their seat would swallow them up.

Oh, yes, Crowley had an idea.

“‘scuse me, angel. Be right back,” Crowley declared shortly after the singers had dispersed.

“Where are you doing?” Aziraphale asked as Crowley slid out of the booth.

“Gotta stretch my legs a minute. Tiny booths, these.” Crowley gestured vaguely at the table.

“You think so? I thought they were rather roomy,” Aziraphale mused, wiggling demonstratively in his seat.

“Eh, yeah, but my legs are longer than yours,” Crowley hedged. “I’ll be right back.”

Aziraphale gave a little shrug. “As you like, dear. Do hurry back, though. I was hoping to order dessert.”

Crowley bit down on the devious sort of grin that threatened to spread across his face (it was nearly a requirement for demons to possess that sort of grin, but it was also a bit of a giveaway). “Of course, love.”

He left Aziraphale at the table with the pleased, if embarrassed, little smile that resulted from Crowley’s pet names, and went to find their server. He caught her on her way back to the kitchen and flagged her down; the girl had so far been quite bubbly and seemed rather delighted by life in general, and Crowley had no doubt she would be a useful accomplice.

“Excuse me, sorry to bother,” Crowley said as he and the girl stepped away from the flow of the traffic in the aisle, his solicitous attitude 50% fabricated to gain favor and 50% ingrained politeness to foodservice and other customer service workers (largely, they didn’t do anything to deserve being terribly impolite over, and in the past he’d saved a rude attitude just for the ones he could feel just waiting to snap and take their ire out on dozens of customers), “but my partner and I actually came here tonight for our anniversary and I was wondering, is there anything… _special_ you might be able to do?”

The girl lit up like a firecracker. “Oh, absolutely!”

Crowley grinned back. “Just what I was hoping to hear.”

Minutes later, Crowley was back at the table, eating a few more chips off his plate before giving the rest over to Aziraphale. “Still thinking about dessert?” he asked, as though Aziraphale ever changed his mind about having dessert.

“Oh, yes, please.” Aziraphale dabbed away any crumbs still clinging to his lips while nodding towards the dessert menu propped up in the middle of the table. “Anything catch your fancy?”

“As a matter of fact…” Crowley glanced around, catching their server’s attention with a wave of his hand.

She bustled over, picking up the empty dishes stacked at the end of their table before she’d even come to a stop. She glanced at Aziraphale and then at Crowley. “Time for _dessert?_” she asked, in what was probably meant to be a covert tone of voice.

Crowley held in a grimace; useful, yes. Discrete, not so much. “Time for dessert,” he confirmed.

Grinning, the girl nodded and sped off with their dishes before Aziraphale could say a word.

Unable to question their server, Aziraphale turned a suspicious look on Crowley. “What are you up to?”

“Ordering dessert. Obviously.” Crowley wiggled his fingers dismissively in the direction the server had gone.

“Oh, obviously.” Aziraphale tsked, still suspicious. “What did you order?”

“It’s a surprise.” Crowley grinned as Azirapahle’s frown deepened.

“You know I don’t care for surprises,” Aziraphale fussed.

“Well, this one involves chocolate, so you’ll forgive me.” Crowley caught sight of a line of servers leaving the kitchen, their own leading the way with a big smile, and hastily tacked on, “probably.”

Brows furrowed, Aziraphale had opened his mouth to question Crowley further when he noticed the line of servers approaching their table. He watched, confused, as their server placed a lovely-looking piece of chocolate strawberry cheesecake with a single, sparking candle stuck in on the table between Aziraphale and Crowley.

In the split second between the dessert going down and their server straightening up to begin a one-two-three clap, Crowley could see the realization dawn on Aziraphale’s face, followed quickly by panic, and had to fight down a mad cackle.

(This was really all Aziraphale’s fault, anyway; he’d been the first to rope a bunch of restaurant staff into singing for someone’s birthday in the first place. It was hard to deny Aziraphale’s harmless and cheerful requests, particularly when he wasn’t actually _trying_ to be charming, and he’d ended up with the whole restaurant singing. When the practice had caught on, Crowley had accused Aziraphale of horning in on his territory, making humans miserable, but Aziraphale had insisted it was a lovely display of human camaraderie and celebration.

Crowley loved irony.)

“I don’t think–” was all Aziraphale managed to get out before the servers began, more or less as one, to sing.

“HAPPY ANN-I-VER-SAR-Y, HAPPY ANN-I-VER-SAR-Y, HAPPY ANN-I-VER-SAR-Y, HAAAPPY ANNIVER-SAR-Y!”

Oh, it was even better than Crowley had hoped. It was just the words “happy anniversary” repeated over and over to what vaguely resembled the William Tell Overture.

And everyone around them had turned to watch.

“HAPPY, HAPPY, HAPPY, HAPPY, HAPPY ANN-I-VER-SAR-Y, HAPPY, HAPPY, HAPPY, HAPPY, HAPPY ANN-I-VER-SAR-Y!”

Aziraphale was sitting ramrod straight in his seat, expression caught somewhere between mortification, the desire not to appear ungrateful, and the desire to murder Crowley.

Crowley, at that point, had to cover his own mouth for distant fear of unsettling the humans around him with his inhumanly wide grin. It was probably for the best he wasn’t counted among mortals anyway, he decided as he rested his elbows on the table while his shoulders shook with constrained laughter; he wouldn’t have been able to breathe by now if he was.

“HAPPY ANN-I-VER-SAR-Y, HAPPY ANN-I-VER-SAR-Y, HAPPY ANN-I-VER-SAR-Y, HAAAPPY ANNIVER-SAR-Y!”

The singers mercifully wrapped up their performance, each spending a moment clapping before breaking away from the group, probably glad to go back to serving their own tables, where they wouldn’t be expected to sing. The other diners all joined politely or enthusiastically in on the applause before returning to their own meals, and finally Crowley and Aziraphale’s server was the only person left paying attention.

There were tears in Crowley’s eyes, though he couldn’t risk lifting his sunglasses to wipe them away at the moment, and Aziraphale was so red Crowley thought he might actually combust.

“That,” Crowley croaked when he’d finally reined in his laughter, “was definitely memorable. Thank you.”

Their server gave a pleased little wiggle. “I’m glad! How long have you two been together?”

“Oh, ages,” Crowley answered mirthfully, at the same time Azirphale hissed, “_Too long._”

Corlwey snorted into laughter once more while Aziraphale moodily reached over and pinched out the flame on the guttering candle.

“Well, enjoy the cake. Happy anniversary, again!” Their server gave one last cheerful wave before turning back to the kitchens, and Crowley took the opportunity to swipe the tears of laughter form beneath his eyes.

Aziraphale pulled the slice of cake towards himself and snatched Crowley’s unused fork. “I’m not sharing this with you. You don’t deserve it.”

“I expected nothing less,” Crowley replied easily, still snickering to himself a bit.

Aziraphale did eventually relent and offer Crowley a bite, saying the cake was too good not to share, and made sure Crowley left a generous tip “for his nonsense” before they left for home.

Later, Crowley blamed the high of successfully one-upping Azirpahale’s last trick for not keeping his guard up.

After all, he knew Aziraphale well enough to know that he wouldn’t view this as a killing blow in their unofficial bet.

He’d view it as an escalation.

-/-/-

_This isn’t fair,_ Crowley whined (internally, in case whining externally caused Aziraphale to stop what he was doing. Just because it wasn’t fair didn’t mean Crowley wanted him to _stop_). He’d just dropped by the bookshop to say hello, talk to Aziraphale a bit, maybe tempt him out to a drink or to dinner – instead, he had been accosted by the frankly indecent display of Aizraphale practicing his swordsmanship. With his _sleeves rolled up_.

The worst part was that “practicing his swordsmanship” wasn’t even a metaphor. Aziraphale had cleared some shelves and boxes to the side on the shop’s mezzanine level and set up a simple padded pole on a stand and was using it to practice his form.

It was a very nice form.

Crowley didn’t actually know a blessed thing about sword fighting (Aziraphale had attempted to instruct him back in the early 1700’s after an unfortunate encounter with some pirates, but Crowley had been abominably distracted just watching Aziraphale and hadn’t learned much at all before new orders from their respective head offices had brought the lessons to an end), but as he watched Aziraphale maneuver around the dummy, striking with the easy power and grace one would expect from an angel meant to wield a flaming sword, Crowley could certainly appreciate his _form_.

This was cheating. It had to be. There was no way Aziraphale had just decided to pick up sword fighting again after nearly 300 years of hardly even _touching_ a sword. The timing was too suspicious, and he _had_ to have realized the effect it had on Crowley.

He was more than just touching a sword now, though, and Crowley didn’t even bother to make that thought sound less suggestive, too distracted by watching Aziraphale run smoothly through a series of movements that had been ingrained in him at creation, his soft, blue button-up (sans coat and waistcoat, of course he was, it just wasn’t _fair_) pulling taught across his back and giving a hint of the muscle that was there beneath his softness.

“Oh! Crowley!” Aziraphale exclaimed when his routine turned him in Crowley’s direction at last. “I didn’t realize you were here!”

Like Heaven, he hadn’t.

“Can’t imagine why not,” Crowley replied, and where had that hitch in his voice come from?

“I was just getting in a little practice,” Aziraphale said, his breathing heavy with exertion, and that was just rude; they didn’t even _need_ to breathe, but the sound was doing funny things to Crowley anyway. “Been a bit since I’ve really handled a sword, you know.”

Crowley wasn’t touching that one. “A bit,” he agreed instead.

Aziraphale hummed, swinging the sword lightly in his hand – it was made of wood, for practice only, and Crowley knew Aziraphale would never just idly swing an actual blade about, but damned if the easy confidence wasn’t attractive anyway. “The whole nasty business with Armageddon and briefly having my own sword back made me realize I was probably a bit rusty.”

If this was Aziraphale rusty, Crowley would have liked to see him well-oiled.

Crowley was also abruptly very glad he hadn’t said that out loud. He managed a vague noise of agreement instead.

“It is getting a bit warm in here, though, I must admit.” Aziraphale placed the practice sword on a nearby box and fanned himself with his hand.

“You’re an _angel_,” Crowley blurted, gesturing sharply. “You can just – cool yourself off again.”

“Well, yes, I suppose.” Aziraphale nodded, tugging a bit at his collar and loosening his bowtie. “But there’s something bracing about letting your corporation do it on its own sometimes, don’t you think?”

“Not…” Crowley was momentarily distracted by Aziraphale tugging his bowtie off altogether and tucking it into his pocket, “really, no.”

“Something about the burn of the muscles and feeling the air grow heavy with the exertion of it all, is just… satisfactory.” Aziraphale smiled at Crowley, sunny and innocent, as though he didn’t realize just what it sounded like he was saying (a year or two ago, Crowley might have bought it, but he knew better now). “It does make it a little hard to carry on with a lot of layers, though.”

“Does it?” Crowley asked, not nearly so disinterested as he’d been aiming for.

“Of course, it’s just you and I here, so I don’t suppose there’s any harm in losing the shirt, as well,” Aziraphale said, so nonchalant that his tone came right back around to deliberate interest, eyes wide and obvious while his fingers hovered over his shirt buttons. “That wouldn’t bother you, would it, dear?”

Oh, that was _it_.

The sound Aziraphale made when Crowley pounced on him was remarkably unsurprised (or unremarkably, all things considered), but rather amused until it faded into pleased when Crowley’s mouth found his.

_No matter_, Crowley thought distantly. Aziraphale hadn’t won just yet.

-/-/-

“I win,” Crowley declared some time later, reclining on the floor beside Aziraphale.

They were cushioned on a blanket that had been summoned with a snap from another part of the shop, and were now covered with one that had shown up with similarly miraculous timing. Both of them were breathing heavily this time as Airaphale aimed a little frown at Crowley. “What do you mean, you win?”

“The wager. Who’s more easily flustered,” Crowley clarified.

“I’ve no idea what you’re talking about. A _wager_, does that sound like the sort of thing I’d be party to?” Aziraphale scoffed transparently.

Crowley snorted. “You just don’t want to admit you lost.”

“If there _had_ been such a wager, how exactly is it that I lost?” Aziraphale asked. “You did seem quite flustered right before you jumped on me.”

Crowley rolled onto his side, leaning into Aziraphale’s space to press a kiss to the side of his throat, murmuring against the skin. “Well you seemed a bit _more_ than flustered when I had you under me, telling you every little thing I was planning to do to you.” He nipped sharply at the side of Aziraphale’s neck, feeling the angel shudder against him, then sat up a bit to smirk. “That, and you came almost as soon as I got my tongue on–”

“Alright, that’s quite enough out of you,” Aziraphale cut in, covering Crowley’s mouth with one hand.

Crowley was obligingly silent for a moment, though the light of amusement didn’t fade from his eyes. When Aziraphale slowly pulled his palm back, Crowley went on. “Seems like pretty much the height of being flustered to me.”

“I’m not entirely convinced you know what “flustered” means.” Aziraphale raised a dubious eyebrow.

“And you’re just arguing to avoid admitting I won,” Crowley insisted smugly.

For a moment, Aziraphale just frowned up at Crowley, perilously close to a pout that Crowley was determined not to give in to. “You know, considering the circumstances,” Aziraphale said at last, glancing down over the blanket that was presently the only thing covering them, “we might _both_ be considered winners.”

“Oh, _might_ we?” Crowley snickered, flopping back down beside Aziraphale. “Spoken like the true loser of a bet, angel.”

Aziraphle huffed, propping himself up on his elbows to look over at Crowley. “We didn’t even _bet_ anything.”

“Just means I get to decide my prize now,” Crowley reasoned.

“That’s not how it works,” Aziraphale protested.

“I think I’d like a kiss,” Crowley went on as though Aziraphale hadn’t spoken.

“Really?” Aziraphale regarded Crowley with suspicious surprise. “Just a kiss?”

“A kiss,” Crowley confirmed with a nod.

“Well. I suppose I can accommodate that,” Aziraphale said, a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth.

“Mm, just a kiss,” Crowley hummed as Aziraphale leaned in. “And bragging rights.”

Crowley did get his kiss, though it was accompanied by a huffy slap to the chest.

_Fair tradeoff_, Crowley decided, reaching up to push his fingers through Aziraphale’s hair and reel him in for another kiss, and another, and another, until they were both as flushed as the other.

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi on Tumblr if you like, I'm [solarmorrigan](https://solarmorrigan.tumblr.com/) over there, as well


End file.
